After a long few months of waiting, the PWHL has officially announced the league schedule for each of its six teams. After its inaugural season of no names or logos and a short schedule, the league now has names and logos and a slightly longer schedule for fans to support. Each team announced their training camps last week, so the schedule had to follow soon.
Instead of 24 games, each team will now play 30 games, with 15 at home and 15 on the road, and there will be three breaks throughout, similar to last season. It’s unclear if there will be a Rivalry Series like last season, but the first two breaks will be for undetermined international play, while the final break will be for the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship that will be held from Apr. 3-25. In this article, we’ll highlight some quick points for each team’s schedule and how these breaks will affect the league as a whole. We’ll start with the New York Sirens and move on from there.
Sirens Need Better
The Sirens were the first team out of the playoffs last season, and they’ll be looking to redeem themselves from their struggles. This season, they’ll be tested immediately as their first game will be on the road against the Walter Cup champions, the Minnesota Frost. That won’t be the only test at the beginning of the season either, the Sirens will be on the road for their first three games before they finally get a home game more than two weeks into the season, and their home opener will be the last of the six teams.
Throughout the season, they’ll have a string of home games followed by a string of road games. However, through the end of December and into the beginning of January, they’ll have six home games with one road game thrown in the middle. The end of the season will be mostly on the road, just like the start, but they will officially end the season at home against the Montréal Victoire.
Charge Looking For Postseason
After nearly locking up the postseason, they suffered a season-ending loss that put them on the outside looking in by just a point. The Ottawa Charge will also be looking for redemption, especially against the Toronto Sceptres, who handed them the loss that knocked them out of the postseason. Like the Sirens, they will start on the road for a quick game against the Victoire but then have their home opener just a few days later.
Following a couple of home games and their first international break of the season, the Charge will be on the road for five straight games, two of which will be against the Sirens, so they will be very familiar with New York by the end of the trip. The Charge will get their time at home a little later in the season with five consecutive home games in February. Their first big match-up against the Sceptres will be the second game of the season for the Charge, and lucky for them, they’ll be at home. After a season where they finished strong except the final game, it’ll be interesting to see if they can maintain more wins throughout this season.
Victoire Have High Hopes
They were picked to go all the way last season and unfortunately fell short when they lost to the Boston Fleet in Round 1 of the postseason. Unlike the two teams before them, the Victoire will start their season with two straight games at home. When looking over their schedule, their first rematch against the Fleet will be at home at the end of December, and everyone will be curious to see how that ends. The Fleet had something to prove and now it’ll be on the Victoire to see how they handle the rematch and if they’ll be the ones to knock out the Fleet this season.
The end of their season will be back-and-forth, with one game at home and then back on the road for one game until they finish the season on the road against the Sirens. While the Sirens and Charge have seasons to redeem themselves from, it will be interesting to see how the newly named Victoire does. They’ll have their previous season to live up to, and they’ll be looking to fulfill their new name as well.
Sceptres Want Redemption Too
So far, this has been a list of teams looking to do better than they did last season, and the Sceptres are near the top of that list as well. They’ll be looking for revenge after they were expected to face the Victoire for the Walter Cup and instead got bounced from last postseason at the hands of the Frost in Round 1. Like the Victoire, the Sceptres will start the season at home but won’t stay long as they’ll have a bunch of one-offs to start the season.
They’ll be at home for a game, then on the road, and vice versa until nearly a month into the season. Their third game of the season and second game at home will be facing the Frost, who knocked them out of the postseason after rallying from elimination three times. Everyone’s eyes will be on the Sceptres/Frost matchups throughout the season but also on the Sceptres in general to see if they and Natalie Spooner can have the strong season they did prior.
Fleet Want Their Chance
Just like the Sceptres before them, the Fleet was surprised by the Frost coming back and stealing the Walter Cup from them in five games. The Fleet will start their season on the road against the Sceptres, but in their home opener, the second game of the season, they will play host to the Frost. Fans won’t have to wait long to see the match-up from the first-ever Walter Cup Championship.
Depending on how the teams perform after their first offseason and a few changes, those will likely be the most intriguing match-ups of the season. The Fleet will bounce back and forth like the rest of the teams between home and road games but they’ll finish up the season at home against the Frost in what could be another postseason rivalry like the season before.
Frost Looking for Back-to-Back Championship
Last but not least, the Frost will have a lot of eyes on their schedule to see if they can have a stronger season than the last and come home with another Walter Cup. They barely made it into the postseason, and this season, they’ll get started at home against the Sirens. It’s a common theme throughout all the schedules; the teams bounce back and forth between home and road games before having long streaks of home and/or road games. The Frost will get their first long stint at home with five straight at the end of December/early January so fans can get their eyes on scoring star Taylor Heise.
Each game for the Frost will be watched closely as they are the first defending champions looking to reclaim the trophy and had quite a few changes happen during the offseason as well. They may start at home, but they’ll finish up the regular season on the road against the Fleet, a rematch that has already been discussed earlier. It’ll be interesting to see how each team stacks up on their schedule, especially the Frost.
International Breaks Can Cause Issues
After looking at each team’s schedule and the important re-matches for each team, it’s time to talk about the three long pauses throughout the season. The first break will be just a week-long in December, from the 9th through the 16th. The second will be another week-long in February from the 3rd through the 10th, and the final break will take place near the end of the season.
In April, the league will take nearly a month-long break from the 3rd to the 25th for the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship. While these breaks are due to other events, they can be troublesome for the teams involved. Having too long of time away from the team can make it difficult for the team to keep its chemistry going.
Of course, the players who aren’t participating in certain events still see each other, but part of being a team is practicing all the time together and forming those bonds. When there are big breaks it makes it harder for those bonds to form and harder to keep their play scenarios going and to be able to improve themselves as a team. Some teams handled the breaks better than others last season, and it’ll be interesting to see how this season goes with three breaks and what teams come out on top.
